In a bit of good news for employers, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that some incidents in the workplace are too trivial to constitute sexual harassment or to support a retaliation claim. While the Supreme Court's decision was brief and unsigned, it shows that even judges can become impatient with lawsuits based on minor workplace incidents.
The case involved a female employee who met with her male supervisor and several co-workers to evaluate job applicants. One applicant admitted saying to a co-worker at a previous job, "Making love to you is like making love to the Grand Canyon." The supervisor read this statement out loud and he and another male employee laughed about it. Later the female employee told the supervisor that she was offended. She alleged that subsequently she was treated unfairly by being transferred to another job with less responsibility. She then sued alleging sexual harassment and retaliation for having complained about the incident.
The lower court dismissed the female employee's sexual harassment claim, but permitted her to go ahead with her retaliation claim. The lower court reasoned that even though it did not consider the incident to rise to the level of unlawful sexual harassment, the female employee could reasonably believe (even if mistakenly) she had experienced sexual harassment and therefore was entitled to complain about it without retaliation.
The Supreme Court reversed on the ground that "no reasonable person could have believed that the single incident" constituted unlawful sexual harassment. The Court explained that sexual harassment is unlawful only if "it is so severe or pervasive as to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." Conversely, "simple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount" to unlawful sexual harassment. The Supreme Court stressed that an incident in the workplace must be judged "by looking at all the circumstances, including the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee's work performance." In light of this legal standard, the Supreme Court ruled that the female employee's retaliation claim should have been dismissed because she could not have reasonably believed that the incident was anything more than a trivial, isolated matter.
While the Supreme Court's decision does not change the legal standard governing sexual harassment or retaliation, the Court's willingness to throw the case out does indicate that there are some limits to the kind of claims that need to be taken seriously under Title VII.